ABC Country Hour interview with Minister for the Environment and Water Tanya Plibersek

SUBJECTS: COORONG, LOWER LAKES AND MURRAY MOUTH REGION; MURRAY-DARLING BASIN PLAN; GOYDER INSTITUTE FUNDING. 

CASSANDRA HOUGH, HOST: The Federal Water Minister Tanya Plibersek is in Adelaide today. She was talking about the Space Weather Forecasting Centre as well, but I caught up with her about funding for a new water research hub that she says will harness the First Nations and community input and improve scientific knowledge to better manage the internationally significant Coorong, Lower Lakes and Murray Mouth region. And this is happening at a time when, if you've been down to that part of the world, you'll know just how spectacular it is looking. And I was able to catch up with Minister Plibersek recently.

TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Well, I'm really excited to announce $8 million over four years for this fantastic new research hub. The Goyder Institute has been around for a while, but this will really allow them to continue to do ground-breaking science. It will be looking at things like inflow into this Lower Murray, Coorong Lakes area, evaporation, how we deal with changing water levels and the impact that climate change will have on changing water levels. Doing this over four years gives us a good long period to properly plan the science, do the science and then communicate the results of that research to the people who rely on the river system.

HOUGH: The Ngarrindjeri people of the area were actually the first Indigenous group given the ability to control the environmental flow to a region, and that has seen changes and allowed them to support important wildlife and plant species for their community. How will the Indigenous insight be involved in this?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: I think one of the great successes of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is the fact that the river has been connected to the ocean for eight of the last ten years, even through those extraordinary dry years that we saw. That's been absolutely vital for the health of the water that sustains life in that area. And the involvement and leadership and guidance of First Nations peoples has been critical to that. We know that when the river mouth is closed up from the ocean, we can see really high rates of salinity and the impact on the fish species and bird species and plants of that extraordinary high salinity that we've seen in years past has been so destructive. By being able to avert that in recent times, we've seen a real restoration of nature.

HOUGH: How much difference can doing this work at a time when the River Murray is full and there is plenty of water around. How much difference does it make doing the research now when the region isn't in drought?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, being able to see the river at its healthiest is a really good insight into what we should be aiming for. We’ve got a million square kilometres covered by the Murray-Darling Basin system, and across most of that million square kilometres at the moment, we've got more water than we need in some places. But the impact of that is to restore areas that have been dry and crying out for water. So, we're seeing wetlands, in particular, flood plains, parts of the river system recovered to an extent that many people don't remember seeing. 

Seeing it at its best, seeing it at its maximum carrying capacity for birds and fish and wildlife, it gives us something to aim for, it gives us an understanding of what the river at its healthiest can look like. One of the surest things we know about Australia is that it might be a wet season this season. We might be in the third La Niña cycle. But sure as anything there will be a dry season that comes again. And so, preparing for that by seeing the explosions we're seeing at the moment of native fish species and native birds and migratory birds breeding up their stocks. That's a really precious opportunity to prepare for the future.

HOUGH: Federal Water Minister Tanya Plibersek speaking with me earlier today in Adelaide and Water Ministers are actually meeting next week to discuss the interstate water issues that this country faces so we'll keep you up to date on what they speak about there.

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